About

Welcome to the U.S. Government Publishing Office’s (GPO) Government Book Talk! Our goal is to raise the profile of some of the best publications from the Federal Government, past and present. We’ll be reviewing new and popular publications, providing information about new publications in the offing, and talking about some out-of-print classics. The goal is to spotlight the amazing variety of Government publications and their impact on ourselves and our world – and have fun while doing it.

About the agency: GPO opened its doors over 150 years ago on March 4, 1861, and is part of the legislative branch of the federal government. GPO employees have been Keeping America Informed on the documents of our democracy, in both printed and electronic form. The agency produces the Congressional Record, Federal Register, the nation’s passports, and other Federal Government documents. It also maintains the Federal Depository Library Program to ensure public libraries nationwide have access to Federal published information.

About the authors:

GPOWriter: My name is Trudy Hawkins, and I am a writer and marketing specialist in GPO’s Publication & Information Sales Division supporting the U.S. Government Online Bookstore. I specialize in email marketing, outreach, and promoting content published by U.S. Federal agencies.

catgoergen1991: GPO Public Relations Specialist Catherine Goergen has worked in the Public Relations office since 2018. She promotes GPO and the work it does for Congress, Federal agencies, and the public through a variety of platforms, including social media, govinfo featured articles, media outreach, and this blog.

About our blog software: GPO uses WordPress, a free blog software provider with which we have an agreement, to operate our blog, but the content belongs to us.

If you have thoughts about a post, more information about a topic, or ideas about books to discuss, let us know. We see this blog not as a single voice, but as a community of book lovers, be those books print or electronic. Let the discussion begin!

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129 Responses to About

This design is stellar! You certainly know how to keep a reader
entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Great job. I really enjoyed what you had to say, and more than that, how you presented
it. Too cool!

Thanks for publicizing these fantastic government documents, with thoughtful and well-written reviews. It’s nice to know that the government is attempting to keep records, but I think they need to focus on educating our children better instead of spending so much on preserving things that can be infinitely replicated.

Hello: I thought that your readers and colleagues might be interested in this. Please help us promote this initiative to read through a story/blog and send me a link should you use it. Also, email me or call Jennifer below if we can help you in any other way and thanks! – Mike Volpe/DOL

Contact Name: Jennifer Marion
Phone Number: (202) 693-5795
Email: marion.jennifer.r@dol.gov
Release Number: 13-2241-NAT
From Ben Franklin to Betty Friedan, from “Of Mice and Men” to “The Devil Wears Prada,” U.S. Department of Labor launches Books that Shaped Work in America
Centennial project invites public to compile list of books about work, workers
and workplaces and learn about department’s mission and history

Visit the Books that Shaped Work website

WASHINGTON — From Ben Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Improved” to Sonia Sotomayor’s “My Beloved World,” nearly 100 titles of fiction, nonfiction, plays and poetry begin the initial roll of Books that Shaped Work in America—a Centennial project of the U.S. Department of Labor in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.
The web-based project, http://www.dol.gov/books, launched today as part of the department’s ongoing commemoration of its 100th anniversary, aims to engage the public about the Labor Department’s mission and America’s history as a nation of workers as portrayed through published works.
“The Books that Shaped Work in America initiative explores the dignity of work and our progress in expanding America’s fundamental promise of opportunity for all through the lens of literature,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “Think of this effort as an online book club where people from all walks of life can share books that informed them about occupations and careers, molded their views about work and helped elevate the discourse about work, workers and workplaces. At the same time, the site provides a unique way for people to learn about the mission and resources of the U.S. Department of Labor.”
Work, like our nation, is constantly evolving, and so Books that Shaped Work in America is no different. To get it started, 24 individuals, including Perez, eight former secretaries of labor from both Democratic and Republican administrations, department staff (including an intern), civil rights leaders, critics, authors, media personalities and staff from the Library of Congress submitted suggestions. Among the contributors: former Secretaries of Labor George P. Shultz and Robert Reich, authors Daniel H. Pink and Joan Acocella, Solicitor of Labor M. Patricia Smith, Liz Claman of Fox Business News, President of the National Urban League Marc Morial and Scott McGee of Turner Classic Movies. Their recommendations are included on the initiative’s website, along with brief summaries of each book and links to related U.S. Department of Labor resources.
Now the public is invited to expand the list. A simple, online form, which can be found at http://www.dol.gov/books/form, makes it easy for anyone to suggest a book.

View the video on YouTube

“From a simple tale for children like ‘The Day the Crayons Quit’ to a scholarly tome like ‘Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position,’ the books on the list demonstrate the rich breadth and depth of work in America,” said Carl Fillichio, the department’s senior adviser for public affairs and chair of its Centennial. “As we continue to mark the Department of Labor’s 100 years of service to workers in our country, this project is a terrific way to educate the public about work, workers and the work of the Labor Department. Watching the list grow, and hearing the discussion broaden, is going to be very exciting.” Read Fillichio’s Get Out Your Work Books blog post.
The project was inspired by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress’ 2012 Books That Shaped America exhibition, which explored the impact of books on American life and culture. Many of the books in that exhibition had work as a central theme, bringing to light the significant role published works have played in shaping America’s view of workers and workplaces throughout its history.
Created in 1913, the mission of the U.S. Department of Labor is to foster, promote and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assure work-related benefits and rights. To learn more about the department’s history, visit http://www.dol.gov/100/.

Hi from Nambour, Australia. My name is Nicky. I am a nineteen year old law student. I stumbled across this blog when I was doing some research for my university assignment. Thanks for your work. I now have a lot more direction. 🙂

Actually, many of our publications are sold in commercial retail and online bookstores, including Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books, Google Books, and some overseas outlets as well. Our GPO Sales Program works with book distributors to get these publications out into as many sales channels as possible. However, it is up to the individual business as to whether it wants to purchase any particular title. Thus, GPO also distributes Federal Government titles through our Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). You can look up a title to find if it is in a library near you at http://www.worldcat.org. I hope this helps!

I would like to include the photograph of John Kennedy standing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the White House lawn in a book I am writing. Is this allowed or is their another channel I should work through.

Stacy: Have we got newsletters? Yes! The US Government Bookstore has a number of options for newsletters. You can go to our Online Bookstore site at http://bookstore.gpo.gov and then click on the My Email Subscriptions link in the footer at the bottom of the page to sign up for our email list and select as many of the 255 topics we have available, from International & Foreign Affairs to Nursing. You will only be emailed when a new Federal publication is released that belongs to the newsletter category to which you have subscribed.

Additionally, you can subscribe to this Government BookTalk blog by clicking on the subscribe to this blog link on the right column near the top of this blog, and you will be automatically emailed each of our blog posts.

It’s nice to know that the government is attempting to keep records, but I think they need to focus on educating our children better instead of spending so much on preserving things that can be infinitely replicated.

Thanks, Ashley! You are very right about that! The old site is totally manual and missing a lot of modern ecommerce necessities like a content management system. We can’t wait for IT to give us the go ahead to go live… Cheers!

In our country GPO means general post office. Government printing office is a extremely a valuable printing industry. It is secured. On line bookstores should open all the books for world wide people. No restriction would apply here.

Yes, I agree that the American public should be kept abreast with what’s going on. I don’t know if the entire public would necessarily care but at least they couldn’t complain that the resources aren’t there!

I can relate with Jim Cameron, in that I too have a thousand books! As both an English literature major and a student teacher, I’ve had the priviledge of reading a lot of good texts. While I mainly enjoy and appreciate historical and classical texts, I think the public needs to have better access to government publications. As it stands, the general public seems to only read the bestseller’s list, which is populated entirely with young adult reads, and celebrity autobiographies. Thanks for the info!

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Heya just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different browsers and both show the same outcome.

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What book would you recommend to read if im interested in learning about government conspiracies? I want to read a factual and accurate book, hopefully something written by a renowned author. Thank you so much

Unfortunately, that isn’t a topic we carry on our bookstore. I would recommend going to one of the prominent online booksellers and reading their customer reviews and ratings for books of this topic. Hopefully you’ll find what you’re looking for…

If a company chooses to use the comma before “Inc.” in its name, we ensure that it is included after as well: “Acme Example, Inc., is a sample company.” When parentheses follow the name, should the comma still appear after?

The GPO Style Manual does not specifically address this issue. I also noticed that there is a lot of discussion (pro and con) about this on the Internet. I think it is probably personal preference, depending on the circumstance, since many grammarians believe we overuse commas anyway!

So there you have it. Government style rules allow you freedom to choose which method you prefer.

A work of the United States government, as defined by United States copyright law, is “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. government as part of that person’s official duties.”[1] The term only applies to the work of the federal government, including the governments of “non-organized territorial areas” under the jurisdiction of the U.S Government,[2] but not state or local governments.

In general, under section 105 of the Copyright Act,[3] such works– including blog posts– are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S. law, sometimes referred to as “noncopyright.”

However, many publications of the U.S. Government contain protectable works authored by others (e.g., photos or drawings, patent applications, Securities and Exchange Commission filings, public comments on regulations), and this rule does not necessarily apply to the creative content of those works. Thus, you must check each publication and work produced by GPO to ascertain whether it is public domain or some other copyright protection status.

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My spouse and I absolutely love your blog and find many of your post’s to be precisely what I’m looking for. can you offer guest writers to write content in your case? I wouldn’t mind publishing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write regarding here. Again, awesome website!

Dave- It is ironic, but true. The WordPress theme that was selected by my predecessor for the Government Printing Office blog is called “Contempt.” (They substituted the custom book image for the header.) It certainly gave me a chuckle when I first saw it! Thanks for pointing it out and for the compliments…

Hi from Nambour, Australia. My name is Nicky. I am a nineteen year old law student. I stumbled across this blog when I was doing some research for my university assignment. Thanks for your work. I now have a lot more direction. 🙂

This is a great idea, but I would like to see links on the side for the most used tags, and also RSS feeds for those tags only (for example, I am only interested in education documents). Or it would at least be useful to be able to search the posts, if nothing else.

In the course of eternal fight between good & evil power, many interesting stories remain hidden beyond our conscious knowledge. Those hidden facts, when are brought to light, become useful for the followers of the good, act as a source of inspiration for them.
In the light of this view, I would always love to appreciate such publication. May I expect such publication here from or should I’ve to search anywhere else?
Love to all.
Cheers!

GPO Comrades: Do you have anything on your website that outlines the history of who, when and where NASA satellites are used to detect oil and other natural resources for government and private industry?

The mainstream corporate media as a shining example of antitrust laws being trampled through selective enforcement and in duplicitous protection of propaganda ministries, rarely if ever mentions that Central Africa and the Congo are zones for systematic systemic genocide.

Under the CIA Torture Paradigm and employed tactics, techniques and technologies used for affecting counterintelligence reverse measures, both sides of the created resulting conflicts are being funded by blackops components within our own government.

These crimes against humanity includes using gang rape and mutilation as a weapon against men, women, children, and infants. It was difficult for me to believe that the nation of my birth that has twice seen my blood in her defense is actually the greatest terrorist threat facing the world today.

Certainly you are aware that the agenda of Corporatism is to process the total aggregate of the world into a commodity.

Often this global plantation model is employed codependently with Pentagon Colonization, which recognizes 730 U.S. military bases positioned on the soil of over 130 sovereign foreign nations. No other nation has a military base on U.S. soil. The major export of the United States is military hardware, bombs and perpetual wars for profit veiled as American democracy.

Lest we forget while our citizen are slowly expiring within an unseen American Holocaust brought by the treasonous Congressional Capos, that it is these very same parasites who have converted the United States into a Virtual Death Camp Environment with thirty years of failed trickle down Reaganomics.

No matter our social differences or politics, we the people need not look down for our enemies who are not our neighbors, we only need to look up to the anti-American jackals sniffing the rectums of treason on Capitol Hill.

Hi, In the country where I come from it is actually normal for family libraries to contain thousands of volumes – with many rare books among the totaliy, I have an over a century old copy of Platos Apology of Socrates in German, typed in a gothic script and all that. My question is, however, have you published any monographs or materials about pre-WWI foreign affairs or United States foreign policy during the belle epogue?

Two questions: 1) How can my office sell our quarterly publication via the GPO Bookstore? I work for the Department of Defense. 2) Would you know if any government publications are made available for sale on the Kindle or i-Pad?

You can contact me at jcameron@gpo.gov or call me at 202-512-1709 and I can explain how to get your publicaiton into the GPO sales Program. We are making a number of titles available as eBooks and we can discuss this, too.

In response to this legislation, in June 1994, GPO launched GPO Access, which provides electronic access to about 100 collections of Government information.

In January 2009 GPO unveiled the next generation of Government information online with its Federal Digital System (FDsys).

File formats for each publication that we provide electronic access to are made available based on the file formats that are provided to GPO by Congress and Federal agencies. GPO does not have control over these formats. Certain publications that are published by Federal agencies and Congress are not provided to GPO for electronic dissemination, only print.

As GPO works to improve its Federal Digital System, we are very interested in public feedback concerning available resources. If there is a particular Government publication that you would like to access in electronic form, please send us your suggestions through our askGPO system at http://gpo.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/gpo.cfg/php/enduser/ask.php.

I’m a student at S.I.U. in Carbondale,IL. but I’m also a retired U.S.Army veteran.And I’m in school to be a Military History Teacher,I’m getting ready to start my student teaching.Can you send me some copies of anything you have on the History of the U.S., from the years 1600 to present.I would love you if you could help me out.

Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately, we are chartered only to sell Government publications to the public, not do free distribution. You might want to try the Federal Depository Library program, which makes Government publications available for free use in more than 1,200 libraries nationwide. here’s a link through which you can locate a library near you: http://catalog.gpo.gov/fdlpdir/FDLPdir.jsp

Hello,
Our ministry is starting a program of for local groups to help them be better prepared during times of catastrope. My question is can we legally provide government survival publications etc with our group distribution kits.
Thanks for any help in advance.

Most Federal Government publications are in the public domain and can be used however you see fit. If in doubt, you can always contact the issuing agency directly to see if there are any issues with your using them.

WOW,
Now that is great and expedient service in action. Thank you for your quick reply. I noticed on your board earlier that you were looking for a way to utilize a like/dislike function. Have you checked to see if there is a plug-in or widget for this function. I’ll keep an eye out and if I come across one I’ll pass you the link.
Once again thanks for your help.
Shane

Hello ! are there any gov. publications, probably in the field of Transportation, concerning the valuation of Billboards ? Billboards often are impacted by road and bridge projects, and my research to date indicates that the valuation of Billboards is at the discretion of each state’s Department of Transportation. The USDOT may have a uniform procedure and if so, I would need to know what it is. Thank you very much for your excellent work. Bernadette Pasqua, Realty Specialist, NJDOT

Donna – Our primary rule of thumb is to feature content produced by the Federal government. As the Government Printing Office, we happen to have printed most of it, which makes it easier to actually have physical copies in front of us when we write our reviews.

We welcome any suggestions you may have regarding Federal publications for consideration.

Is the GPO planning to (ever) provide it’s books as e.Books, or at least as .pdf files. My guess is that the book files have to be converted to pdf before they go to press; and if the purpose of the GPO is to disseminate this information as widely as possible—it seems like that would be a rather logical thing to do.

GPO is actively pursuing the conversion of some of the publications it sells to ebook formats. We are beginning the test phase and expect to have the first few conversions done soon. I’ll be announcing their advent here on Government Book Talk.

Question: My husband’s father was part of the intelligence community during WWII stationed in Morocco. We are currently packing up our home to move and we came across an old trunk. It contains some WWII-era documents that are classified. Richard had said (jokingly, or so I thought) that toward the end of the war he’d asked if he could destroy a pile of classified documents of no great importance. He was told “yes”, but only if he made 5 copies of each document first. In the end, he gave up. Not having anyone to hand them over to, he brought them home with him and squirreled them away. Clearly, these are those same documents. What do I do with them? Technically, they are US government property are they not? Thank you! D.

This is such a fun site to review each morning. Is it possible to add a “like” option just like Facebooks has or a smiley face or something so that I can say yep, I liked today’s post without having to submit a comment?

Will the blog posts keep coming to my email? I enjoy the blog, but don’t want to have to use a reader…I’d just like to keep reading the info via the email I already have to keep up with. Do I have to set something up to make sure the content will continue to be emailed to me?
Thanks for help on this.

The intent of Title 17, Section 105, United States Code, is to place in the public domain all works of the United States Government, defined as works “prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties.”

This means that public documents can generally be reprinted without legal restriction. However, Government publications often contain certain copyright material which was used with permission of the copyright owner. Publication in a Government document does not authorize any use or appropriation of such copyright material without consent of the owner.

Since the Government Printing office serves as a printing and distribution agency for Government publications and has no jurisdiction over their content or subject matter, we suggest that you consult with the originating department or agency, or its successor, prior to the reprinting of any given publication.

For in-print titles sold by GPO, try http://bookstore.gpo.gov. There is a field in each individual record for the originating agency. For books we don’t sell, check the Catalog of Government Publications: http://catalog.gpo.gov. WorldCat may be of help for older titles.

Actually, commercial bookstores can sell Government publications. In the past, there have been some constraints that have limited us, but more recently we’ve been experimenting with more flexible terms and conditions. As a result, in a number of cases, at least one major bookstore chain has ordered books for resale. Let’s hope it’s a trend!

We don’t maintain a subscription list for our blog. We did send out an announcement to those who have asked to be kept apprised of our publications, but you won’t automatically get blog posts from us unless you ask for them.